REPRESENTING JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN 100 COUNTRIES ACROSS SIX CONTINENTS

World Jewish Congress delegation meets with Ukrainian PM to discuss situation of Jews

Thu, 27 Aug 2015

Leaders of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and the Ukrainian Jewish community held talks today in Kiev with Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, to discuss both the situation of Jews in Ukraine and international matters. The WJC delegation included WJC CEO Robert Singer and WJC Vice Presidents Andrey Adamovsky and Boris Fuchsmann, as well as the chairman of the General Council of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, Josef Zissels.

Singer expressed great satisfaction that the Jewish community enjoys comfortable living and good relations within all spheres of Ukrainian society, and thanked Prime Minister for his government’s leadership and cooperation. Yatsenyuk made it clear that he and his government would continue to be “very tough and adamant on fighting anti-Semitism and xenophobia,” adding: “These are not just words. They come from the bottom of my heart.”

The WJC delegation and Yatsenyuk also discussed joint concerns with Iran nuclear deal, notably Tehran adhering to its commitments and effective controls by international regulatory bodies. Singer expressed concern about Iran arming groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and about proliferating terrorism. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk pledged to “act in concert with the free world” to ensure that Iran does not gain nuclear weapons capabilities.

The group also raised the upcoming anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre carried out by German forces and local collaborators in September 1941, and the planned commemorations of this event. There was agreement that the Ukrainian government, the local Jewish community and the WJC should work together to host an international commemorative event on 29 September 2016, the 75th anniversary of the massacre, in which 33,771 Jews were murdered in a single operation.

Also on Thursday, the WJC delegation met separately with the mayor of the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, who gave his full support for the preservation of the Babi Yar memorial for future generations and next year’s commemorations of the massacre.

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"Including Jews among the perpetrators of these horrors, and blaming the victims instead of the killers, is a travesty that will only draw us further back to some of the darkest moments in human history.”

The WJC and the Bulgarian Jewish community have made a series of active efforts in recent months to curb the demonstration, engaging with the Bulgarian government to demand a complete administrative ban be placed on the march.

'We cannot stand by in silence as neo-Nazis and anti-Semites march through the streets in the same dangerous manifestation of the very ideology that brought about the near destruction of European Jewry.'

WJC CEO Robert Singer: "The fact you had 42,000 people sitting in the stands, seeing the slogan ‘Say No To Anti-Semitism’, means many people were exposed to it and I think it’s only the start of the process.”

WJC General Counsel Menachem Rosensaft writes in the Boston Herald: 'Just as Jews are commanded at the Passover Seder to remember that we were slaves in Egypt, I can never forget that my parents and I were once stateless refugees.'

WJC Jewish Diplomat Ela Cenudioglu reflects on Holocaust remembrance and the idea behind the World Jewish Congress #WeRemember campaign, after taking part in the Italian Jewish community's annual Run for Remembrance.